Bharti Airtel’s positive March quarter earnings will cheer its shareholders

When a company’s results filing extends into the late evening hours, it is normally assumed it is trying to postpone bad news. In Bharti Airtel Ltd’s case, its late Monday results filing was full of positive surprises, in contrast.

Its flagship India wireless business reported a 4.4% sequential jump in revenue, far higher than the 1% increase analysts at brokerages such as Kotak Institutional Equities and IIFL Institutional Research were expecting. What’s more, given the fairly high operating leverage associated with the telecom business, losses before interest and tax fell to ₹1,378 crore, from ₹1,903 crore in the December quarter.

Mint’s rough calculations show that this is the first quarter since Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd started operations in September 2016 that Airtel has reported an increase in Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation).